Hey parents,

I want to talk about the quote Chuck Norris uses which is, “Putting your kids in karate is the best thing you can ever do.”

I myself believe that 100%.

I’m going to talk about my backstory a little bit.

When I was about a teenager, I would say my confidence is nowhere near as it became after doing martial arts. I was basically more of a follower than a leader, and I just followed my friends. And unfortunately, some of them were doing things that weren’t that good, right? So, basically they would get into trouble, and because I was more of a follower than a leader I would copy their bad choices.

But once I joined martial arts I realized what was more important to me and what I enjoyed. Slowly I started climbing the ladder to becoming a leader.

Now at this point in my life I run my own school and I have my big team of staff, who also I’m developing them as leaders as well. So definitely, I 100% love what I do, working with children.

We focus on working with children. We do have some adult programs too, but kids is our main thing here at Richmond Martial Arts. I love working with kids taking them from low confidence to becoming leaders. So many of our kids who started when they were like three or four years old, who are now like 15, 16, 17, 18, they’re now working for me as black belts here, I’m watching them become leaders.

So, definitely as a parent myself, talking to you parents, putting your kids in martial arts definitely, just like Chuck Norris says, karate is the best thing you can do for your child.

I want to talk about pushups and why I don’t want our students at a young age to think push ups are bad.

Back in our days when we were kids if you remember when we did something wrong like in gym class we would definitely be told to do pushups for not listening or goofing off.

But the thing is…..if you use pushups as punishment for kids then they are going to associate that as a bad thing and that will stay with them as teenagers and adults. Thats why its important pushups should not be used for punishment, they should be used to get better in health and fitness.

So, what I do is instead of using old-school tactics like pushups or yelling, or anything like that, I do a points system. It works really great, especially for kids between, I would say kids from like maybe say two to like maybe nine or ten, around there, it works really great.

So basically the process is very simple. If someone’s not listening or if someone’s doing something they’re not supposed to do, I’ll basically go, “Oh, you’re going to lose a point if you don’t do that.” Or, “Oh, you lost a point,” if they’re already done it. Okay? Kids love video games, they like challenges, points systems. So, I find this works really good.

The thing is just the delivery of how you do it. If you do it incorrectly they’re going to feel like, “What points?” Right? But the way I deliver and the way I do it and animation, all that, they don’t ask, they love it because I make it a challenge.

Because I’ll be like, “Oh, you lost a point. That’s a point, back in your spot.” And then they’ll go back in the spot right away because they don’t want to lose that point, right? If it’s really excessive I might even stand there and pretend like I’m writing on the mirror, and I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s a minus point right there.”

But I always, always, when I take points away, I always tell them how they can earn them back. So, I’ll go, “Okay if you just do good you can earn it back.”

But then if I want the kids or my full group to give me more energy. Say they did like 10 jumping jacks but they were like… I could tell the energy was low. I’ll be like, “Okay. Okay guys, who here wants five bonus points? Who wants them? Raise your hand.” And I’ll raise my hand first, so obviously they’re going to raise their hand too. So then I’ll be like, “Okay, if you guys can redo those 10 jumping jacks one more time with a bit more intensity and be more loud and make sure you count properly, I’ll give you five bonus points. Are you guys ready?” And then I’ll be like, “I want you guys to say, ‘Bring it on.'” And then they’ll be like, “Bring it on.” And then I’ll say, “Okay, go.” And then you’ll see the room will be lit up with energy like crazy.

The points system works beautifully. I love it, I do it all the time.

Click the link below to watch the video version of this article ⤵️

Karate Kid is a very popular movie where Mr Miyagi mentors his student Daniel. When I watched this movie back when I was a kid I didn’t really understand it much.

I thought he used karate to beat up the bullies that were bothering him. As an adult now who runs a martial arts school, I totally get the movie and I understand that Mr Miyagi was teaching Daniel life lessons or “life skills”.

Life skills is the mental part of the martial arts, so it isn’t just physical. In our children’s program we teach something called the word of the month which are words like confidence, self-esteem, and leadership.

All the self defense moves like punches and kicks are not used everyday because it’s only for self defense….However life skills can be used in our everyday lives.